§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish in theOfficial Report a table to show (a) the investigation reports published by the Fair Employment Agency in each of the last three years, (b) for each of those reports the percentage of Roman Catholics employed, on the basis of the information obtained by the Fair Employment Agency, (c) the percentage which the Fair Employment Agency considered to reflect that fair employment procedures were being followed, (d) the percentage of Roman Catholic employees which the employers believed to be in the work force and (e) by what means the Fair Employment Agency determined the number and percentage of Roman Catholics and what methods they used to check the accuracy of their figures.
§ Mr. Viggers[holding answer 22 June 1988]: The table lists reports of investigations by the Fair Employment Agency over the past three years indicating the percentage of Roman Catholics identified by the agency in each work force and indicating those organisations where the agency found that equality of opportunity had been afforded. Copies of these reports are available in the Library. Apart from two employers highlighted in the table no others were aware of the religious composition of their work forces prior to the agency's investigation.
The agency assesses perceived religion from questionnaires issued to employees, from original applications for employment or from personnel records. Personal details 646W taken into account, include name, address, school attended, subjects studied, names of referees and leisure interests.
Reports published Per cent4 October 1985—Northern Ireland Housing Executive 136.5 November 1985—Northern Ireland Ambulance Service 24.0 March 1986—Southern Health and Social Services Board 47.0 March 1986—Ulster Museum 16.0 March 1986—Building Societies in Northern Ireland —Halifax 9.0 —Woolwich 17.0 —Abbey National 14.0 —Gateway 11.0 —Nationwide 16.0 —Leicester 146.0 —Leeds Permanent 8.0 —Anglia 146.0 —Progressive 4.0 March 1986—Banks —Trustee Savings Bank 20.0 —Northern Bank 16.0 —Allied Bank 72.0 —Ulster Bank 23.0 —Bank of Ireland 58.0 November 1986—Insurance Companies —Prudential 22.3 —Pearl 133.3 —Commercial Union 11.0 —General Accident 7.5 —Britannic 50.0 —Refuge 63.6 —United Friendly 55.8 —Royal 11.5 September 1987—Derry City Council 169.0 November 1987—Hyster (NI) Limited 136.0 March 1988—Northern Ireland Railways 221.0 May 1988—AVX Limited 125.4 May 1988—Irish News 86.0 May 1988—Century Newspapers 311.0 1 In these cases the Fair Employment Agency was of the opinion that equality of opportunity was afforded. 2 Northern Ireland Railways challenged the Agency's assessed percentage of Roman Catholic workers but the final figure was mutually agreed. 3 Century Newspapers assessed percentage of Catholic workers was confirmed by the Agency's investigation. 4 FEA Assessment of percentage of Catholics employed.